The Mayor of Lexington Avenue (7 page)

Danny sat up too. “Can’t help you,” he said, looking Daly right in the eye. Danny’s right eye wandered a bit, earning him the nickname “Dizzy” in the neighborhood. When he stared at you with that wandering eye, it was disconcerting no matter how muscular you were.

Daly knew they were lying. If their brother was truly missing, those boys would have been out of their beds in a flash. But he also knew from Danny’s look that they weren’t bluffing. If he made a move into that tent, he was going to have to fight those boys. He wasn’t afraid—after all, they were just kids—but he was already drawing too much attention. He closed the flap of the tent and walked away.

Nobody said anything for about a minute.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Johnny finally asked.

“Nah,” Danny replied. “He’s done for the night.”

“What about tomorrow?” Johnny pressed.

“Relax, Johnny,” Eddie told him. “We’ll think of something tomorrow. We ain’t gonna leave you hangin’ out there by yourself.” It was the answer Johnny needed. He was silent again, but only for a few minutes.

“Why me?” he finally asked. “Why’d he pick me?”

Danny felt it was time for a little levity. “Maybe he thinks you’re better-looking than Mikey.”

“I think he saw us peeing together,” Mikey replied. “Figured we were a couple of homos.”

“Go to sleep, you two. We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Eddie told them.

“This is what short pants breeds,” Danny added. The rest of them had a solitary chuckle over that one. They knew Danny was serious.

They fell asleep after that, except for Johnny. Lying on the floor under Eddie’s bed, he wondered why assistant scoutmaster Daly thought he was a homo. What had he done?

At the mess hall the next morning, Johnny stayed close to Danny and Eddie. Assistant scoutmaster Daly was at his usual spot next to the scoutmaster, talking and laughing as if nothing had happened. He didn’t even steal a glance at them when they walked in.

“Look at him over there,” Danny said when they had been through the cafeteria line and were sitting at their table. “I’d like to cut his fuckin’ tongue out.”

It was Eddie who was the more practical one. “We’re gonna have to get rid of this guy,” he said to nobody in particular.

Vinny Schaeffer, another kid from the neighborhood, was sitting with them. “What are you guys talkin’ about? What’s goin’ on?” Eddie and Danny ignored the question while Mikey filled Vinny in on the events of the previous evening.

“Whoa!” Vinny exclaimed. “This guy’s gotta go.”

Johnny couldn’t believe they were actually talking about getting rid of an assistant scoutmaster. He was scared all over again.

“After breakfast when he takes that little walk of his into the woods, we’ll follow him,” Danny said in a low tone as they all bent their heads in together. “We’ll jump him before he starts jerkin’ off or whatever he does out there by himself.” Johnny wondered what they were going to do after they jumped him, but nobody said a word about that.

Sure enough, after breakfast Daly headed into the woods, the boys following a safe distance behind. Danny had his hunting knife with him. About a quarter of a mile in, Daly stopped and sat on a fresh stump. Danny motioned with his hand for the others to creep forward. They spread out and moved silently towards the assistant scoutmaster, who seemed deep in thought. At Danny’s signal, they all ran at the same time and jumped on him. He was so surprised he didn’t make any move to defend himself. They had him on the ground in a second and Danny had his knife out, the flat pressed hard against the assistant scoutmaster’s throat with the sharp edge up.

“Don’t move or I’ll cut ya,” he said in a voice that was almost gleeful. He was daring him to move.

Daly looked into those malevolent eyes, saw the devil’s own smile on Dizzy’s face and felt the cold steel against his throat. He didn’t move a muscle.

Danny could see the fear in his eyes—felt it in his sweating pores.

“Me and the boys been wonderin’ what to do with you,” Danny continued. “They wanna report you. Me? I just wanna cut your fuckin’ dick off and stick it in your mouth.” He pressed the blade even harder into the assistant scoutmaster’s throat. “But we reached a compromise, so to speak. You’re gonna leave here today. Make up some fuckin’ excuse. You homos are good at that. And we ain’t never gonna see you again. Got that?”

Johnny was holding Daly’s right leg, which wasn’t moving at all. There was no struggle in the man. Johnny was wondering when and where this plan had been hatched. He’d been with Danny, Eddie and Mikey every minute since the previous evening and there had been no discussion. He looked at Mikey, who was holding the other leg, intently watching the proceedings. There didn’t appear to be any confusion in Mikey’s mind. Assistant scoutmaster Daly, his well-muscled body lying limply on the ground, slowly nodded his head up and down.

“That’s a good boy,” Danny told him, his left forearm pushing down on the man’s head. “Now we’re gonna walk away from here and you’re gonna stay right where you are for a few minutes. Got it?” Daly slowly nodded as best he could. “And then you’re gonna disappear.” Danny got up but kept the knife pointed at his prostrate victim. The other boys released his arms and legs and started to back away. Johnny expected Daly to jump up and overpower them with his massive frame but he just lay there passively until they were out of sight.

They laughed all the way back to the campsite.

“I can’t believe he just lay there and took it,” Eddie said.

“He was shittin’ his pants,” Danny chuckled. “You shoulda seen his eyes.”

“We shoulda checked his underwear for brown spots.” Vinny was laughing so hard he could hardly get the words out. “You scared me, Danny. I thought you were gonna cut him.”

“Were you?” Johnny asked.

“Hell no!” Dizzy replied. “Do you know what my old man would do to me if I cut that guy?”

“Maybe he’d understand ’cause of what happened?” Johnny said with questioning eyes.

“Nah,” Eddie cut in. “Danny’s right. Dad’s old school. Military. You report it up the chain. He’d beat Danny and then me and Mikey because we were the half-wits that followed him.” Danny, Eddie and Mikey started laughing again. Half-wit was their father’s favorite word.

Daly wasn’t at dinner that night but Danny still wasn’t through with it. He boldly walked up to the scoutmaster after they’d eaten.

“Where’s Mr.’ Daly?” he asked innocently.

“He had to leave. Some kind of family emergency,” the scoutmaster replied without looking up.

Danny turned towards the other boys back at the table and gave them the high sign. It was over.

Eight

The next morning, Friday, Wes and Del were in Clay Evans’s office to update him on the investigation. Clay looked at the two of them in their black-and-white getups and wondered what planet they came from.
Maybe I should have stuck it out in Miami. I could be a partner by now instead of being stuck in this backwoods dive, conspiring with a pair of lunatics.
Just then, adding an exclamation point to Clay’s inner rumblings, Wes put his thumb to one nostril and honked out the other. He wiped off the snot that was hanging from his face with the back of his hand. Del didn’t even notice. A few minutes before, Clay had been at that point in his daily musings when he almost had himself convinced this career move could still work out. When Wes ended his performance by putting his hands in his pockets, Clay gave up.

“How’d the interview go?” he asked halfheartedly.

“Great!” Wes replied. “The kid admitted he was there. Had a couple of beers with her. He said he got up to go outside because he was sick and fell over the coffee table and cut himself on the broken mug, which makes the blood and the fingerprints his. He says she kicked him out after he fell but he also says he could have killed her and just not remembered it.” That last part grabbed Clay’s attention. Wes wasn’t looking like an alien anymore.

“He actually said he could have killed her and not remembered it?”

“Yup.”

“Did you arrest him?”

“No. I let him go home.”

“You what?”

“His mother came to the station during the interview,” Del cut in. “She demanded that she be allowed into the interview and then demanded that we stop. I told her that wasn’t going to happen but that she could get a lawyer. A few minutes later Austin Reaves called demanding that we stop the interview.”

“Austin Reaves? Doesn’t he do wills?”

“Yeah,” Wes chimed in. “But he drinks at the Bass Creek Hotel. We figured the mother was in a pinch and this was the only guy she knew.”

Clay thought about that for a moment. Austin Reaves was probably just a Band-Aid. These people were dirt poor. They probably couldn’t afford a criminal lawyer for the trial, which meant they’d be stuck with old Charley Peterson, the public defender. Having Charley for a lawyer in a case like this was like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. Clay smiled for the first time that day.

“Did you take blood?”

“Yeah. It’ll take a few days to get the results. Maybe Monday or Tuesday. He owns a serrated knife, too.”

“I’m not following you.”

“The coroner told us the knife wounds were made by a serrated knife, you know, the ones with the grooves in them. Well, the kid told me he owns one. Told me where he kept it too,” Clay laughed.

“He really is stupid, isn’t he?”

“Yup.” All three of them chuckled.

“Wait for the results of the blood test, then pick him up. And call that reporter that you know, Wes. What’s her name?”

“Pam Brady?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. I want her to get a picture of this kid for the front of the paper to kind of remind our witnesses who they’re supposed to pick out in the lineup.” They all laughed again. It was an uneasy laugh, however, since one big problem was sitting in the middle of this case like an invisible white rabbit. Clay knew it was time to address that problem.

“Del, could you leave us alone for a moment?” Clay walked to the door with Del and closed it behind him. When they were alone, he pulled a chair close to Wes’s.

“How sure are you that this kid did it?” he asked.

“Dead sure,” Wes replied. “He was there. Puked outside after it was over. He did it. I don’t think it was premeditated but he did it. He was probably mad because she turned him down.” It was Clay who was now eager for background.

“Tell me about this Lucy Ochoa.”

“She’s seasonal, been coming here for years. Married once. Divorced. Very loose. Neighbors say she’s always had a lot of guys come and go. Hard to keep track of her. But nobody saw this kid from the convenience store over there before.”

“You’re sure it’s him?”

“Positive.” Clay needed that commitment before he went any further. Clay was a master manipulator, probably the only thing he did very well. It was in the blood. Although he had no use for the fat little bastard sitting in front of him, after ten years he could read Wes like a book. There were no nuances in Wes Blume’s life. Everything was as black and white as the pants and shirt he wore every day. When his wife decided to go back to work after their second child started school, Wes left her because he believed a woman’s place was in the home. It was that simple.

“There were no signs of rape?” Clay inquired, although he already knew the answer.

“Nope.”

“You know what a defense attorney is going to do with these two blood types.” It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Wes hated defense attorneys. They manipulated facts, evidence, coached their clients to lie—anything to win, even if winning meant putting a criminal back on the streets. He could hear the son-of-a-bitch now, claiming some “phantom fucker” was responsible for the murder while his client, who just stopped in for a cup of tea, was totally innocent. Wes’s face was turning red. He just didn’t understand how the Constitution guaranteed a scum-sucking parasite the right to be represented by a scum-sucking lawyer.

“Yeah, I know,” was all he said to Clay, but Clay had caught it all. It was time to make his pitch. Slowly.

“Let’s assume this kid’s blood matches the blood on the carpet and the blood on the mug, which is a pretty good assumption based on what he told you. Are you with me?” Wes nodded.

“And let’s assume that we conclude from the physical evidence that there was no rape. She must have had sex earlier that evening, don’t you think, Wes?” Clay could tell Wes hadn’t really thought that part through. With Clay’s help he would get it . . . eventually.

Wes nodded his head again, but a little uncertainly this time. “I believe under those circumstances we could exclude the semen as evidence in the murder investigation completely. Do you agree?” Wes had it now. It was brilliant. There was no rape so don’t give them that evidence. Don’t let them confuse the jury with that “reasonable doubt” voodoo bullshit. And it made perfect sense that somebody else had fucked her earlier, a slut like that.

“I agree.”

“Good. But we’ve got to keep this close to the vest. Can you swear Del to secrecy?”

“No problem. But what about the coroner?”

“Harry Tuthill? Don’t worry about Harry, I’ll handle him.”

Since they were officially co-conspirators now, Clay had a few other housekeeping matters to discuss.

“Start a separate rape file.”

“Why don’t we just ditch the semen?”

“No, too dangerous.” He knew Harry would never go along with eliminating the evidence but he didn’t tell that to the Grunt. “If it ever comes out we can explain our position, but if we destroy the evidence, it will look very bad.”

“But why start a rape investigation if our position is there was no rape?”

“We have no probable cause to believe there was a rape but we’re continuing that investigation. That keeps the evidence from becoming part of the public record. If it was in the public record, any newspaper idiot could request all evidence that we found at the trailer and we’d have to give it to them. Hell, they’d get more than we gave the defense in discovery. We’d look very bad. We need to hide that information for now and this is the best way. Down the road when the hubbub dies down, we’ll declassify it, so to speak. The Feds do this all the time.”